


Heart of Oak

by athena_crikey



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: 1945-46, Angst, Gen, The first year of the rest of Thomas' life, Thomas does his duty, begrudgingly, past!fic, picking up the pieces
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 17:59:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14062338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: Nightingale had had enough. Enough war, enough loss, enoughlife. He wanted now only to bury himself away and forget – and be forgotten.But there was still the work of the Folly to be done, and he was the last man standing.





	Heart of Oak

Even in the late spring the air was cool. There was no breeze; it lay still as a shroud in the empty hallways, full of dust and the faded light filtering in through narrow windows. The only sound was the rasp of an awl against wood, the only smell that of sawdust. There was a pervasive hollowness to the building, a hush that only drew attention to the absence of life and sound. 

No place feels of loss like an empty school. 

Nightingale was sitting on the staircase as always, plaque balanced before him on two sawhorses. It was a crude, lazy set-up, but he had had enough of order, of regimented neatness. Sawdust lay thick as January snow about his feet, soft and pungent. His hands were rough and calloused, had long since ceased to bleed from the manual work. 

It would have been hard to say how he knew a second person had entered the building; the texture of the air changed, and a taste of sunshine drifted slowly into the corridor. He heard his visitor before he saw him, the slow click of leather shoes on hardwood interspaced by a duller ringing. He didn’t stop, awl following the groves it had dug. 

The man who appeared around the corner was wizened by age, wrinkled as a dried apple with owlish tufts of white hair at the corner of his eyebrows. His eyes were jet-black, still snapping with a fire that had all but vanished from his form. His heavy double-breasted suit was well-tailored; in his right hand he held a stick of gnarled wood that was more club than cane, the head of it so polished by use that it shone even in the poor light. 

“Nightingale,” he acknowledged, stopping in front of the sawhorses. His weight settled down over the stick, like an aged vulture perching. 

Nightingale set down his tool and looked up, grey eyes steady. “Pickering,” he replied in a curt, flat tone that fell like the toll of a bell into the empty space. 

“Did you consider hiring out the work?” asked the old man. 

“No.”

“No, I don’t suppose you would have.” Flinty eyes dropped to take in the woodwork. Hundreds of names spanned the panel, each carefully chipped from the wood. “Heart of oak,” he added, more softly. “Walk with me, Thomas.”

For a moment Nightingale remained seated, still as a stone. Then, with a deep breath, he unfolded himself and came down carefully, stepping over the piles of sawdust to join Pickering on the hardwood. 

They walked slowly down past the administrative offices and towards the ground floor classrooms. The desks and chairs were still set out, some writing still on the chalk boards; the doors were all open, as though the last boy leaving had run out in a hurry and forgotten to close them. As though classes had only been suspended the day before, rather than four years ago. 

“Young Jameson was forced to give up his position last week – he still has a bullet in his spine. And Todd has broken his staff. There’s only Miller left at the Folly, and he came out of retirement to oversee operations for the duration of the war. He’s overtaxed and out of his depth, and if he doesn’t give me a piece of his mind soon his wife certainly will.”

“What is it you want?” asked Nightingale brusquely, stopping at the end of the hall to look out the bay window at the old rugby pitch. The grass had long since overgrown it, lines left unpainted for years. “For me to take up my old post?”

Pickering came to stand beside him, and the glass reflected two men with hard eyes.

“No. The Empire is tottering, and what will remain of it in ten years few can say. Here at home we’ve no young blood and precious few masters left to us. Nearly none who are fit and willing to take up the service.”

Nightingale’s lips twitched. “And you consider me to lie within those boundaries?” he asked, wry voice echoing down the long corridor as he turned to look back.

“The Folly needs a keeper, Thomas. A steady hand. Someone with experience. Someone who does what needs doing,” Pickering added, slowly.

Nightingale leant back against the windowsill, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m tired, William,” he said, eventually. His grey eyes were staring into the distance far beyond the darkened end of the hallway. 

“We’re all tired. We’ve all given what was asked of us, and more. But the need remains. We must find someone to meet it.”

“I’m not finished my work,” said Nightingale, eyes flashing to the edge of the wooden panel, just visible from where he was standing.

Pickering nodded. “There will be time enough for that, if you agree. I’ll step in myself in the interim if need be.”

Nightingale sighed, reaching up to rub a hand across his face. “I need another two weeks.” The light slanting in the window behind him cast a long shadow on the floor, the hardwood floor around it painted in soft tones of gold and bronze. 

“That can be arranged. Your old quarters are available at the Folly; your traps can be sent down whenever is convenient.”

“And my duties?”

“As it stands now, you will be overseeing southern and central England.”

Nightingale turned to look at him, surprise writ across his face. “Myself and who else?”

Pickering gave him a grim look. “If I find anyone else, you’ll be the first to hear of it.”

  
***

It was close to three weeks later that he arrived on the steps of the Folly, his overnight bag in hand; the heavy luggage had been sent down separately. The door swung open on its own as of old and he stepped forward into the wide atrium.

Here too there was silence and emptiness where there should have been life, a river frozen over into stillness. A part of him mourned the loss the building ached of, but another smaller, deeper part of him welcomed the solitude. 

He had had enough. Enough war, enough loss, enough _life_. He wanted now only to bury himself away and forget – and be forgotten. Looking around at the darkened staircase and abandoned hallways, he thought he had come to the right place for it. 

In the distance a shadow moved and his head shot up, arm half-rising. 

A pale figure in monochrome tones stepped out, black eyes soft and watchful. Molly. 

Of course, she must have known he was coming. Would already have prepared his quarters, aired the room and put new linen on the bed. He remembered the scent well even though more than five years had passed, the smell of old wood and freshly-ironed cotton and lavender soap. 

“It seems I’ve come back,” he said, and tried to muster a smile. She drifted over to take his bag from him, and where his smile was tired and forced hers was genuine.

  
***

Nightingale’s first few days at the Folly consisted mostly of playing catch-up. Reading Miller’s reports, going through case notes, digging through backlogs of police missives referring to potentially aberrant practitioners or fey. He put his own room in order and straightened out the study Miller had been working from. In the intervals Molly brought him tea and biscuits, and sherry in the evening.

Once he had settled in, life grew slower, simpler. He rose, breakfasted, read the paper and occasionally attempted the crossword, went to the library to read. After lunch he walked down to check the wards on the Black Library, finding them untouched and unyielding. Then more reading, or occasionally a trip out to a shop to replace some missing or broken possession. Then supper, the wireless, and bed.

It was a quiet, solitary existence, he and Molly drifting through the Folly like a pair of ghosts, of no import to anyone or anything. It gradually occurred to Nightingale that they had been forgotten, set aside in the burgeoning race towards modernity.

He wasn’t displeased.

  
***

Outside V-E Day passed with a shock of celebration and fanfare. A wet summer followed a wet spring; in the city’s gardens tulips and rhododendrons faded in favour of roses and lupins. Nightingale watched the world pass by from his armchair, reading of families reunited or torn asunder, of death camps and the slaughter of millions of Jews and, in early August when the chrysanthemums were at last showing signs of blooming, of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And so, V-J Day.

“The world is becoming an unfamiliar place,” he told Molly tiredly, paper folded on his knee with a photograph of a rising cloud above a blasted city. She canted her head; whether in agreement or dissent he couldn’t tell.

He woke in the night sometimes, the dark wings of his nightmares fluttering over him. The terror and the fire of Ettersburg. The freezing cold of his long journey home, only pain and fear keeping him going. David’s study, the carpet soaked in blood. He woke less and less often as the months passed, ceasing to heap on extra blankets at the foot of his bed for the chills the night-terrors left.

  
***

It was a damp September day when the phone rang, interrupting Nightingale’s musings on the Zionist movement. It stopped, and a moment later Molly appeared at the door. He rose and stepped out into the hall to answer.

“Hello? Hello? Is anybody –”

“Hello,” replied Nightingale, nodding to Molly who disappeared. “This is Nightingale. Who is speaking?”

“DI Waverly,” answered the distant voice, sounding irritated. “Where the hell is Miller?”

“Inspector Miller has returned to his retirement,” replied Nightingale, calmly. “I’m the new man.”

“Well, Mr Nightingale, or whoever you are –”

“Captain,” interrupted Nightingale. 

“Captain Nightingale,” said the voice on the other end, with audible sarcasm, “You’d best get your arse down to Maughan Library. One of yours has tottered off the deep end.” The line went dead with a click, leaving Nightingale alone in the hall holding the receiver. He hung it up and turned to Molly, standing nearby. “It appears I’m going out.”

  
***

The main quad of King’s had taken significant damage in the Blitz, and although the rubble had been cleared away the damage stood out like a rotten tooth. Nightingale stared as he walked past, the memory of proud days no longer a match for the present.

Maughan Library, the college’s main library building, had been spared in the bombing and stood tall and strong in the damp September day, a testament to education and knowledge. Here, unlike the silence of Casterbrook, students hurried about huddled over their books, young faces excited and eager. There was something refreshing about their youthful exhilaration, and something painful, like the itching of a phantom limb. 

Those seeking to enter the library, however, were being turned away at the door by two uniformed constables. Nightingale strode over, cane in hand. “Captain Nightingale,” he said to the closest PC. “I was called out by DI Waverly.”

“Main reading room, sir. I can take you in.”

Nightingale shook his head. “I know the way.”

The front desks were empty, staff already evacuated. The long halls were still, his footsteps echoing down the corridor. Nightingale passed deeper into the building, past dark staring portraits of former King’s College and Maughan Library administrators. 

Libraries, Nightingale found, had a way of ensconcing their readers in worlds of their own, in creating neat solitary bubbles so that even in a crowd, readers felt alone. He felt it now, striding down the empty hallway.

Outside the double doors leading into the reading room was a short, wiry man in a mac and a grey suit with felt hat. He had one hand on the door as if to keep it closed, but turned when he heard Nightingale approaching. At the sight of the wizard his face darkened, eyes sweeping from Nightingale’s tailored suit to the silver-tipped cane in his hand. 

“I take it you’re Captain Nightingale,” he said, dourly.

“Correct. DI Waverly?”

“In the flesh.”

Nightingale stepped closer. He couldn’t hear anything from beyond the closed door. “What’s the situation?”

“One of your men’s gone and done his nut, is the situation. He was in there reading peaceful as could be, then suddenly he leapt up and started threatening the other students with his stick. No one took it too seriously ‘til he blasted someone into a wall. After that they all ran out. Someone called us, and we called you.”

Nightingale frowned. “Do you know who it is?”

“Funnily enough he failed to introduce himself before he lost his marbles.”

“I see. I suppose I’d better go have a look, then.”

“I suppose so,” replied Waverly. He stepped back to clear the way for Nightingale, who pushed forward and, slowly, opened the door.

The reading room was a large open space surrounded by two storeys of bookshelves. Desks with two green banker’s lamps each sat in rows from east to west. In the centre of the room was an enclosed space for a librarian. 

The room was empty except for a single man sitting in a corner desk, crying. 

Nightingale heard the door click closed behind him; so did the man on the other side of the room, who stood abruptly and raised his staff, gesturing with it. 

Teddy Michaels, Nightingale identified. One year above him in school, a big burly three-quarter back on the rugger team and one of the most solid boys Nightingale had known. But that had been before Ettersburg. 

“Get away,” he growled; Nightingale felt the forma unfolding an instant before it blossomed into life, and leapt sideways. Behind him, a shelf of books was blasted into ash. 

“It’s Thomas, Teddy. Thomas Nightingale. I’m not here to hurt you.”

“It’s here. It’s all here. We have to destroy it. Burn it all, scorch it.” He waved his staff at the books lining the room, some of which had already been destroyed.

“The Black Library is gone, Teddy,” said Nightingale, softly. “It’s gone. It will never be used again.”

“You’re wrong,” snapped Michaels, voice breaking, “It’s still alive, still festering. Watching, waiting to get its hooks into us. We have to destroy it!” He shoved aside a chair and sent another blast at a wall of books; shelves collapsed and books poured out, some of them burned to cinders. 

As he turned to blast another shelf, Nightingale raised his staff. The forma unfurled soft as snow, enveloping Michaels in a cool blanket that drew the anger, then the fear, then the consciousness from him. He sank to the floor silently in a heap, staff clattering away. 

Nightingale walked over, weaving between the desks and scattered chairs, until he stood with the staff at his feet. He bent to pick it up, and then with a tenth-order spell, snapped it in half.

On the floor before him Michaels slept, peaceful at last.

  
***

Waverly was waiting outside when he came to see about an ambulance.

“Well? What the hell was it about?”

“Shell-shock,” answered Nightingale softly, the two halves of Michaels’ staff under his arm. “He’ll need proper medical care.”

“He needs to be locked up,” retorted Waverly. 

Nightingale’s mouth drew itself into a long, thin line. “That will be for the doctors to decide.”

  
***

It was two weeks later that Pickering dropped in for lunch.

Nightingale, not expecting visitors, was in the mundane library doing some filing when Molly brought in their guest, still leaning heavily on his staff. “We used to have a librarian and two pages here,” commented Nightingale, rising from his work. 

“Warwick, wasn’t it?” said Pickering, looking to the desk where the librarian had sat; a thin layer of dust covered the oak surface. “What happened to him?”

Nightingale looked at him with a tired, level gaze. “His ship was torpedoed in the Channel. No survivors.”

Pickering nodded; there was nothing left between them that hadn’t been said. 

“How’s Michaels?” asked Nightingale. Together they walked out and into the morning room. Molly had already disappeared, doubtless in the kitchen making tea and sandwiches. 

Pickering sat himself down carefully in an overstuffed armchair, leaning his staff against the side. “He’s been committed to an institution. They say they’re hopeful. What that means…” he shrugged stiffly. 

“There’s not one of us who made it back who’s not haunted by what he saw – and did,” said Nightingale, standing in the bay window looking out. It was raining softly outside, the trees in the square beyond weighed down by water. 

“Not all of you ran mad.”

Nightingale turned around. “Some days I’m not so sure. The world is a different place now, William. It feels like it’s marching on while we remain in the past, unchanging, unmoving. Tell me that’s rational.”

“The pace of change is advancing. It’s the Americans, never satisfied with what they have – always pushing for something more.”

“Perhaps,” allowed Nightingale, unconvinced. “What was it you came about?”

“To the point as always.” Pickering leaned forward, folding his hands together. “I’ve received a letter from the Police Commissioner. It seems he doesn’t look kindly on the Army issuing orders to his inspectors.”

Nightingale frowned. “They would prefer I resigned my commission?”

“They would prefer you were one of them. Given that that’s clearly out of the question, we must make do as best we can. The Commissioner is minded to appoint you as a Detective Chief Inspector, if you can pass the Inspector’s examination. He is willing to produce your wartime and FCO record as sufficient to offer you the position, with the sole duty of liaison to the Folly.”

“I know nothing of police work,” said Nightingale, crossing his arms over his chest.

“All you need know is enough to satisfy the exam – and you’ve passed your share of those.”

There was a moment of silence, each man searching for weakness in the other’s eyes. “You could offer it to someone else,” suggested Nightingale at last. “Someone stronger. I’m tired of the outside world, William. Tired of seeing the wreckage of good men.”

“When I made my offer, Thomas, it was to the best man left standing. The rest of us are too old, or too broken. There is no one else.”

“I’ve lost sight of the future we were fighting for,” said Nightingale quietly. Outside the rain pattered against the window, like the tapping of ghostly fingers. Like the last words of the dead – so many dead. 

“We aren’t here to fight. We’re here to protect. You know as well as I all the innocents that could – that _would_ – be blighted by magic, were we not here.”

Nightingale looked at him with a sudden fierceness. “What is it you believe one man could do, in the face of all that?”

Pickering stared back, not giving an inch of ground. “Survive. That’s something you’ve always excelled at.”

For a moment, neither of them moved. Then Nightingale turned slowly, looking back to the window, shoulders rounded in capitulation. “It would be worth more if I could keep those around me alive as well.”


End file.
